I read russian translation of this book. It was one of the best sci-fi novels I read. A treat for imagination.

I just read "The Invincible" and found it to be the most imaginative and profound science fiction I have ever read. I can see ... but I don't want to give away the story.

I read the German translation of this book in school (I'm from Germany), and found it so thought-provoking that in the following years I read many more books by this author. Search for Stanislaw Lem, not for Stanislav, and you will find them. He is not always easy to read, but the most original SF author I have ever found, and I have read hundreds of SF books. For example, have you ever heard of the "Brain Potato"? (I don't remember its exact scientific name.) This potato variety is so intelligent that, growing up, it understands the whole senselessness of life, roots itself up and commits suicide. It's from Lem's list of endangered species - one of many species listed. I think this is from "The Star Diaries", a collection of some of Lem's truly mindboggling stories. As for this book: Mankind has progressed and started to explore the cosmos. The powerful starship "The Invincible" is sent after her sister ship, which was sent to explore an unknown planet and did not return. "The Invincible" arrives in orbit around the planet and has no problem locating the missing ship. It stands as it landed, seemingly untouched, on one of many lifeless plains of an almost lifeless planet. Under the highest security precautions the ship lands and discovers most of the missing crew dead. The ship has been vandalized by its own crew, who seem to have gone mad collectively. Several are not found, they have wandered off into the plain and the mountain range beyond. The search for the missing men reveals an extraordinary truth: The planet once was full of life and inhabited by an advanced civilization. All of which was wiped out by conflict - a war in which machines got out of hand. And many of them are still around, fighting each other. "The Invincible" is caught in the fight. She may not lose, but she can't win either... Although it has a strong touch of space opera, this book develops to ask profound questions about technological development and where it may go, and about the ability of intelligent beings to control it. The characters are no heroes, they have their problems, but they are acting mostly professional. Stanislaw Lem doesn't write science fiction soap opera, he writes to ask questions. You want to broaden your intellectual horizon, this is the author to read. And when you read this book, remember that it was written in Poland in 1964.

On one level, this book chronicles the boyhood of famed Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. But on another level it is also a profound "Coming of Age" tale of not just one man, but of a Civilization. Lem's boyhood takes place just prior to World War II, and as he spins his tales of schoolyard politics, loss of faith in adults and the petty cruelties that young boys sometimes indulge in, it's hard not to see the connection with events unfolding in pre-war Europe; politics just as juvenile, the passing of Faith, the horrible cruelties soon to follow...Haunting and elegant book.

Stanislaw Lem's writing is beautiful in this brief work. Fans of his science fiction will surely want to read this to get behind the artifice and learn about the writer. But those who are not familiar with his work will also enjoy this as a meditation on memory, growing up in Poland, and this writer's power to evoke meaning. I read it mostly before falling asleep and it gave me wonderful dreams.

"Carnival" is an entertaining and fascinating journey into the imagination of one of Science Fiction's true literary geniuses, edited and annoted by someone who has been there. Editor Michael Kandel, who has translated many of Lem's works, offers the reader a broad sample of Lem's stories, ranging from the serious (Return from the Stars) to the hilarious (Cyberiad). Interspersed with these stories are the editor's notes on Lem's life, style, and philosophy. For those who are already fans of Stanislaw Lem, the notes provide insight into the stories, characters, and author. For those who are not yet fans, this collection provides a great introduction to an author who will soon become a personal favorite. If you can find this book, buy it at any price

Not for nothing did Lem named this book, and the Project, HMV. The helplesness of the greatest Human minds against an uhuman message is not at all different from the helplesness of the dog in the face of the gramophone.

A word of causion, though. Altough Lem is depicted as a "Science Fiction" author, _HMV_ is not your regular "Arthur C. Clark"-like book. Dont expect racing starships or multi-handed aliens; it's a book about mankind, and it's failures, and is even more novel then Asimov's _I, Robot_, or Lem's own _Solaris_.

A synthetic signal from outer space is detected. In Sagan's "Contact", the signal encodes plans for a spaceship; here it's not so simple. The signal seems to carry many levels of meaning, each one more bizarre and mind-boggling than the last. Lem, as always, weaves together ideas from the fringes of modern science. He also explores the human aspects of scientific research.

This book is not light reading. Many parts require a mental effort like, say, that needed to play chess. This can be irritating, even infuriating. For readers are up to the task, however, the book rewards the effort many times over.

I cannot be counted among science fictions greatest fans. While I did get my share of fun out of the original Star Trek series in the late sixties and earlier seventies, I still think that most science fiction tends to degenerate in a redressing of "old imperial tales", without making any use of the extra possibilities that the many aspects of science could add to the writer's repertoire.

Yet, while scanning the Amazon web pages for signals of intelligent life from distant galaxies, I came across this book that fully lives up to be called, let me rephrase define, science-fiction. A couple of years before the movie made it's way to a wider audience I read Sagan's Contact. While the decoding of the many levels of the "message" in this book went a long way in pleasing the Nerd in me, the story itself was flat as a pancake.

Lem's HMV proceeds Contact by many years and reflects a sophistication from a civilization that is light-years ahead of the one that produced Sagan. Written in the sixties, during the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain, HMV is a work that can be read on at least two levels. Firstly, it is a critique against Cold War politics, military and political decision making, and the conduct of science/scientist. In this respect the work could be regarded as an accurate Swiftian satire. Secondly and most importantly, however, HMV is a psychological and philosophical essay on the limitations of the human mind facing the truly unknown. This second layer is in my opinion the part that makes this book so unique.

Earlier this year I wrestled my way through Foucault's "Order of Things" a post-modern classic of contemporary structuralist philosophy. Lem may not claim to be a philosopher, but by the middle of just the preface of HMV, he has encapsulated all of Foucault's arguments in one focused concise essay in clear language. Throughout the rest of the book Lem exposes the reader to many schools of philosophy, discussion of the possibilities and limitations of science and the extent to which the human mind is limited to the level of projecting itself in the analysis of an unknown subject. An argument could be made that Lem does little more than using the subtext of HMV to give a synopsis of 20+ centuries of philosophy. Yet, both the construction of this novel and the beautiful way in which Lem concludes Hogarth's account of man finding reason without answers in the post-Nietzschian world is truly impressive.

The X-files always claims that the truth is out there. While it took me over thirty years, I have finally been able to recover the part that Lem's HMV contributed to it.

Lem borrows deftly from the languages of medicine, mythology, physics, and engineering in weaving a spellbinding tale of earnest but fallible men travelling to a distant planet. As the title suggests, things go wrong with alarming and often comical regularity; Lem simply refuses to take for granted some utopian future in which everything-- machines, ideas--work flawlessly. Compared to his American counterparts, Lem strikes one as decidedly "old school:" how many works of this category portray with sympathy and understanding a soldier or a Catholic priest? The style is surprisingly polished considering the spotty quality of some of Lem's other endeavors. A book of philosophical debate as well as an adventure story, but without the benefit of character development, it almost qualifies as literature, and it is quite possibly the best science fiction novel ever written.

The finest example of science fiction in the world. Kandel does his usual acrobatics in rendering Lem's Polish into English. Lem has obviously learned much from Olaf Stapeldon; if only other writers would do the same, sci-fi would not be such a disappointing genre. Instead, sadly, Fiasco and Stapeldon's sci-fi books seem to be out-of-print.

Fiasco is simply astonishing: a meditation on the nature of intelligence, culture, technology. Lem often parodies science fiction while writing serious literature, but with this novel he and translator Michael Kandel outdid all previous efforts.

While The Futurological Congress remains my favorite Lem book (personal taste), Fiasco is the best Lem book in English, followed closely by the 'lectures' of GOLEM the computer in Lem's Imaginary Magnitude.

Stanislaw Lem's novel asks several questions: What happens if we meet intelligent beings in outer space and they don't want to talk to us? Do we write off a multi-billion-dollar space mission and go home, or do we try to communicate with them by any means necessary? And what business do we have interfering with them in the first place? "Fiasco" is aptly titled: the space crew decides to engage the aliens in dialogue, with disastrous consequences. The theme crops up very often in Lem's work: the concept of aliens who are so different from us that communication is difficult or impossible. In fact, it is the humans who come off as aliens in this novel. The book manages to be two things at once: a 'hard' science-fiction story and a moral meditation. Usually those two things seem mutually exclusive, but here it works very well. In fact, a member of the ship's crew is a Dominican friar (Father Arago) who is also a priest. I understand that Lem is sort of a nominal atheist with theological leanings, but he was also a friend of Karol Wojtyla before he was elected Pope, and Wojtyla's character seems to have left its impression on Arago. And one of the most affecting scenes in the novel is when a hard-boiled member of the crew sits alone and weeps over the destruction that he and the crew have inflicted on the alien planet. The overall tone of the novel is dislocation; the protagonist is a man who has been reanimated several hundred years after his death and no longer remembers who he was. He awakens aboard a spaceship, among recognizably human beings gifted with God-like technological abilities but cursed with human failings. And when they finally reach their destination, the alien culture is so inexplicable that several members of the crew argue that they might as well go home. What to do? There are certain artistic achievements that deserve their own genre, in my view: "2001", "Apocalypse Now", "The Lord of the Rings", etc. As far as I'm concerned, "Fiasco" is one of them. It's a science fiction milestone, and although the story line is very negative, Lem leaves some hope in the sense that things might have worked out otherwise.

Lem's Pirx is compelling and cool. The science is barely fictional and always thought provoking. The plots, however, are a little more predictable than the sequel. If you're going to read one of these, I'd recommend "More".

This collection of stories by Lem is based around a chubby cadet by the name of Pirx. The character is plucky and gets into all sorts of fixes. I found the first short story the most surprising and fun to read. It's most vivid antagonist are two insects, and it's wildly creative. Another very good story is this one about a robot re-living over and over the last few hours before the death of an entire ship (this was before Pirx's time). A very haunting tale. Overall, a great collection!

Tales of Pirx the Pilot, and More Tales of Pirx the pilot are two excellent sci-fi books! What is unique is that there is such a strong psychological edge to them. And the fact that Pirx is such an everyman - kind of unsure of himself, and from the outside, unassuming and apparently not especially competent. But Lem does something amazing with Pirx - with each story, he gains experience, confidence, cynicism, and most importantly, judgement and wisdom. Make sure to read the Pirx books, as well as The Invincible, and Solaris.

This book will make you think of the world differently. I guarantee that you will question the value of subjectivity by the time you're done.

Lately, I've been asking friends to loan me books that changed their lives or that have found particularly noteworthy. I asked this in an attempt to broaden my reading background and also to learn more about my friends. I've always considered myself a science/speculative fiction fan but had never heard of Stanislaw Lem until this book was loaned to me. After this wonderful first experience, I will certainly be tracking down a few more copies of some of his other titles.

This book embodies everything that good science fiction should be - using the future to teach us more about our present. "The Futurological Congress" is a heavily layered book that relies on the reader to engage the storyline and draw parallels to the present day. The text (in translation) is spare enough to be clear and move the plot along rapidly, while also being satirical and comical at the same time.

I don't want to go into the plot in too much depth since folks before me have already done an admirable job in that regard, but suffice it to say that reality becomes almost immediately problematized and you will not be able to figure out what is fact or fiction within the world of the book (not that it matters). Ijon Tichy, the main character, goes to attend a conference called the "Futurological Congress", where all sorts of folks discuss the future directions of humanity. During the conference, a popular revolution places the scientists in danger. Drugged by the hotel water supply, hallucinating hotel guests hide out in the sewer. It gets more insane from there...

If you like Philip K. Dick's more mindbending works like "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" or "Ubik," you will love this one by Lem. At a scant 150 pages, you'll truck right on through it and then wonder whether you actually read it.

Here I am sitting on a chair and pecking at a keyboard with a monitor and computer in front of me. At least I think so. But what if the sushi I had for lunch was spiked with a psychotropic drug that makes me believe that this typing at the keyboard activity is real? Especially when, in actual reality, I may be strung up stark naked and upside-down in a subterranean dungeon with rats gnawing at my vitals while happily thinking up what to write about Stanislaw Lem's greatest book, THE FUTUROLOGICAL CONGRESS.

The reason why I believe that some of the best sci-fi since WW2 came from Eastern Europe (Lem from Poland and Boris and Arkady Strugatsky from Russia) is that the mind set of communism was conducive toward what is referred to as "aesopic writing" (The term comes from Solzhenitsyn.) If you protested anything, you were regarded as a traitor to the state; but if you wrote fables as the Greek writer Aesop did which were not set in a particular unnamed repressive regime at a particular time, you might be able to get away with it scot free.

Lem had a field day by speculating on a congress who members are drugged into thinking they are drugged into acting as if they were drugged ... it goes on and on. The more or less classical beginning descends into multiple levels of questioning every level into reality, until even the most utterly solipsistic stance is questioned. By that time, you are either confused or, if you're like me, laughing your head off. As they say in another context, unreal!

I am a list fiend. I make lists of every conceivable form and fashion. One such list is "The Funniest Books I have Ever Read." This one makes that list, finishing in a three-way tie for first with CATCH-22 and John Barth's THE SOTWEED FACTOR (Jerome K. Jerome's THREE MEN IN A BOAT is next in the list). The plot: the future is a very, very bad place to be. Inconceivable overcrowding, deplorable living conditions, shortages of every imaginable form. How to cope? Drug the world! Social engineering and better living through the use of mind altering drugs. Democracy and Socialism have given way to the government of the future: Pharmacocracy! The world isn't a better place; it just seems to be. But when terrorists put LSD into the water supply at the 116-story Costa Rica Hilton during the meeting of the world's foremost futorologists, the thin veneer holding society together becomes flayed.

Lem has written three of my favorite books in the world: this one, THE STAR DIARIES (also featuring Ijon Tichy--I believe in the original Polish these two were part of the same volume), and SOLARIS. The latter is equally superb, but oddly enough, completely without humor. It is almost difficult to comprehend that these works all came from the same writer.

I'm a big fan of Lem but I have to admidt he has churned out some bad books. I have read all but two all of Lem's books and this is among his worst (along with Chain of Chance, Eden, the Investigation). Its boring, short, and no way worth [that much money] Instead start out with one of his 5-star books: His Master's Voice, Star Diaries, Fiasco, or Pirx the Pilot.

Lem's writes a great story. But more than that, he is different, I think, because of...well, because of something else. Something occuring below the surface of the narrative. Something hidden...something coded? I don't know. It is some thought-provoking something that gets you to put the book down to consider something new, or perhaps reconsider, anew, something you thought you knew.

Writers ought to attempt entertainment, I think. Of course, not every writer succeeds. But Lem does. Brilliantly, I should say. Moreso, though, Lem's work is made more thorough-going, more profound in effect, perhaps more three-dimensional, because of something powerfully nonverbal....some undiscovered, secret goings-on behind the words and phrases. Something at once present and indiscernable. Something, at times, even terrifying.

I can't explain it. I can't talk about Lem's technique or his uniqueness in plain language. His achievement itself aspires to the nonverbal. Just read "Memoirs", or "The Futurological Congress", or the "Cyberiad", and see for yourself how, the story, or what it becomes, manages to linger long after the book has been closed. Lem has been lingering in my mind for years.

Whatever that curious something is, though, a rarest of things, the thing you feel when you read Lem, but can't quite locate, I'm sure is something Lem the artist has somehow fashioned deliberatley. For this reason, I think, I can't say you should read Lem...but that you must.

Not for the casual reader, this devilishly complicated book will have you stumped in the end. So unless you wish to re-read it (in order to finally figure out what it was all about) don't bother with this one. But for those of you searching for that rare book that leaves you wondering and puzzled for days, weeks, years... well, this is it. From the brilliant mind of the best Polish sci-fi writer comes a satire and a comment on those wonderful societies of ours (take your pick: socialism, communism, etc.) and the methods of their tyranny.

The plot is simple: An innocent, foolishly loyal aspiring agent enters his new occupation only to find out that those in power have plans of their own (which he just can't discover). Searching the confines of a "Building", a futuristic military-like establishment hidden underground, he seeks his mission, his purpose and the meaning of his existence. Ultimately, all those disappear before his eyes and turn into code. This skillfully written tale where not one word lacks meaning or purpose (or does it?) attempts to understand methods of population control. Could it be that political systems have, are and will rule their population through skillful semantics-control? (think NEWSPEAK) Lem posits that political rhetoric color not only our judgment but also our ability to perceive the world around us. Concentrating on the cold war tension between the US and CCCP, Lem explores systems which convert all their resources and their entire populations to one task: the destruction of the enemy. To accomplish their goal, they convert the minds of their subject. Much like a child who learns to adhere to the principles of society through the careful teaching of parents, teachers, TV, and others, a member of these societies learns to relinquish to his superiors the ability to judge his surrounding.

The Building's plan is simple: Through a carefully planned mission, our hero learns to loose trust in himself, loose his ambition and the ability to choose how and to whom to be loyal. He learns that he is a tool. He discovers that his only responsibility is to the Building, and that the Building alone can think for him, tell him what, how, and why to think. He learns that he is a part of the Building and that his duty is to serve a predetermined function which he himself can't alter. He learns that he can only make sense of the insane world around him, if he unconditionally adapts the strategies of his surrounding.

In the end, he discovers that a system like the Building has developed into a new life-form (who smiles and leads a life of its own), an organism whom we humans must ultimately serve and whose survival we must guaranty if we ourselves wish to live on. If you can deal with an unorthodox plot (if there is one), and like your books heavy on ideas, this is the book for you. Otherwise, stick with Jordan or Simmons - they're good, too.

...and not so much a novel as a collection of short stories, but most concerning the same two characters: rival inventors/scientists Trurl and Klapaucius. As such, it's a pretty scattershot collection; some stories being totally compelling, others leaving me bored and confused. Lem is a master of satirizing science (and scientific dogma) in its many forms. He also seems to revel in his own cleverness sometimes, which can be a bit over- bearing, but since he really IS clever most of the time, it's almost justified. Would I re-read it? Yes, but now I know the parts I'd prefer to skip over. Would I recommend it to others? Yes, but others would probably enjoy it more than I did (not that I didn't enjoy it). A special tip of the hat to translator Michael Kandel, he did a great job.

I am baffled at how the previous reviewer could reduce the Cyberiad to a collection of name puns and logarithms jokes. The Cyberiad was sophisticated, humorous, profound and utterly original. Witness the pastoral poem on love and tensor algebra (with a little topology and higher calculus): Come let us hasten to a higher plane/ Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn/ Their indices bedecked from one to n/ Commingled in an endless Markov chain." And even though Lem wrote the Cyberiad in Polish, the translation is excellent - there is no caveman like grammer! I'm a fan of the Herbert-Niven school of science fiction but the Cyberiad showed me that science fiction can be so much more than the ubermensch and space battles. I think the comparison to Swift is apt though Lem doesn't have Swift's um, bathroom humor. Some stories reminded me of the Canterbury Tales. I think Lem is a far superior humor writer than Douglas Adams (why is he so famous?) whose Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy is threadbare and juvenile compared to the Cyberiad. Anyway, to the point: dear reader, please purchase The Cyberiad, it is in a class of its own.

First, the Cyberiad is an absolute hoot. It works on the highest literary levels with humor and insight. My only complaint is that Lem didn't write more of these cyber fables (I've got almost everything he's written that's been translated over the years and he's written quite a lot in this vein and IT IS NOT ENOUGH - I WANT MORE! ). He's probably most famous for his book Solaris which I found an intriguing bore (personal taste only and could be a bad translation since I don't read in his native Polish). People who read Solaris as their first Lem book will find little in common with the Cyberiad. I avoided Lem for years because I pegged him as the author of Solaris and didn't realize what a virtuoso author he was. He will never win the Nobel because he's been stamped as a "Science Fiction" writer, sort of like Vonnegut, Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick are/were. He's different from all of them ... Read Solaris, The Invincible, and the Cyberiad and you'll see the range of his skills (good and bad). An aside: I was astounded when my 9 year old picked up the Cyberiad and read it (obviously not getting a lot of the finer points) and then asked if he could find more books about Trurl and friends. He thought it was one of the funniest things he's read (and he likes the Harry Potter books also). Now, I wouldn't recommend Lem to most 9 year olds ...

The first thing, which surprised me, about the novel was the copyright date. Lem wrote this in 1961, which predates Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (written in 1968). There are some similar themes. I don't know if Clarke was familiar with this book, or if reading this after reading the book or Kubrick's film has caused this sense of deja vu.

The story concerns a space station where the scientists are studying, and attempting to make contact with, the planet Solaris. Each character has to deal with his or her own internal doubts, but also has to interact with the other members of the crew. These doubts are more important than you may think on a first read.

In the story, there are long sections where Kris Kelvin is going through the library reading up on the research of Solaris and neutrinos. In the initial read, I thought that a lot of this could have been cut to keep the novel more concise. Since there is so much of it, I wondered if Lem intended for us to focus on this. I believe he did.

The research and the history of research give us a mirror of our own scientific community. It also questions the SETI project and our attempts to make contact. His statement about this seems to be that our endeavor to contact something non-human is flawed because we are approaching it from a human frame of mind.

This is a very good book, and I would highly recommend reading it.

This is the best book you'll find in the "sci-fi" section of the book store, and I'd argue that it's not really science fiction.

Solaris is primarily a human drama with a science fiction setting. The main character's conflict has more depth than most literary novels, let alone genre books. The sci-fi elements are there, however, sparse leaving the imagination to fill in the blanks - this keeps the story fresh because there are no outdated details. Also, Lem never answers the story's most intriguing questions, adding to the book's resonance.

This drama will engross anyone and I challenge those who wouldn't normally read "science fiction" to try this one out.

One note readers should know beforehand is that the version of Solaris available in English is a translation from Polish to French and then translated from the French into English. For some irresponsible and bizarre reason, publishing house Faber and Faber who own the license have not authorized a direct from Polish translation of Solaris. The good news is that despite this the translators from the French have a good sense of literary style and did a fine job of making it readable and enjoyable, though obviously not as accurate a translation as could be.

At first glance Solaris seems hard science fiction. Set in the future after man has explored many systems the main character arrives at the space station orbiting the planet Solaris. Lem lets us know several things up front, the planet is suspected of being an intelligent life form and there is a long history of exploration, strange happenings and accidents that have occurred. By the time Kelvin arrives after almost two hundred years of study only a small team is left to record and study the planet.

More than hard science is really at the heart of this novel. There are musings on alien contact and the nature of what is intelligence. Is man really the measure of everything? As events occur, Kelvin the rational scientist succumbs to those most irrational of feelings, love and longing. Ironically, Kelvin, the person sent to investigate the occurrences among the crew is the one who is emotionally effected the most by the visitors that accompany everyone.

The genius of the novel is that the visitors are reflections or copy's of each individual in each person's memory. Every character is touched (or disturbed) on a level much deeper than a more conventional alien contact approach. Few readers will fail to imagine who from their own memories would take the form of their own visitor.

This is one of the most intelligent science fiction novels I've read in a long time. The story ends up not being about science but about what makes us human, what is intelligence and what may separate us from another life form. Moving, well written and highly recommended.